Under the dawn :: :: University of Virginia Library

138

THE HYMN.

I

O sacred head of Man,
Defilèd for a span,
But risen now, and with new might proceeding
To unbar the ages' doors,
And ope the brazen floors
Wherein the pallid sons of men were bleeding,
Thine is it surely to undo
All fetters, and provide the race with armour new.

II

For thou, instead of Christ,
Providing a new tryst
In the wide world, but in no local garden,
Shalt bring upon us great
Blessings unseen as yet,
And mysteries of holier life and pardon

139

Of all the sick ensanguined past,
Bestowing on us gifts that verily shall last.

III

Full many years ago
He sang of blood and snow,
This poet whom I strive to imitate—
He sang of Christ and tears,
And sorrow of bruised years,
And famished sinners thundering at the gate
Of an exclusive, narrow heaven—
I lead the sinner therein though his crimes be seven.

IV

I am the clear-voiced bard
Whom no crimes may retard,
Nor any folly, nor cruelty, nor sin,—
My heaven is wrought of God
Who lays aside his rod,
And bids each, even the vilest sinner, in;
For the slow faiths of previous time
Give place to something greater, holier, more sublime.

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V

Behold, the new Christ stands
At the portal of the lands,
Wreathed not with thorns alone, but also flowers;
His face not only shines
With tears—he also twines
Around his head the roses of glad hours;
Behold, he standeth at the gate!
His name is one with Progress, and with Life, and Fate.

VI

All life, all knowledge are
Contained in Man's new star,
All shapes, all sweet similitudes of bliss,
With lordly presence he
Shall stride across the sea,
And earth and air and all that therein is;
The fabled sceptre Jesus held
Descends on sacred Man, by God's design impelled.

VII

All scientific gain
Is Mankind's to retain,—

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All secrets of the unfathomable deep,—
All bounties of the skies
He searches with his eyes,
And marks the young stars when their first limbs leap
With pleasure through the quivering void,
By God's own tender palm benevolently buoyed.

VIII

All novel thoughts of love
Are Man's, who from above
Draws down the golden chain of progress sweet,
For nothing is exempt
From error, though men dreamt,
As Milton, of a Christ with blameless feet,
And as the Greeks in older times
Recorded perfect gods in smooth, immortal rhymes.

IX

But let me never swerve,
Sweet Spirit, but with nerve
Clear, and with chant of never-ceasing praise,
Hymn Man, the sacred king,
Whose crown the ages bring,
Whose throne of gold the impetuous ages raise,

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At whose divine and untired feet
All forces of the past, and past religions meet.

X

Let me, with harp untired,
By passionate craving fired,
Resound the great indissoluble name
Of Man, the great new God,
Swordless, nor helm, nor rod
Adding fictitious lustre to his flame,
Nor any fancied virgin's womb
Bestowing on his flesh inexplicable bloom.

XI

O women! mothers wronged
By fancies that belonged
To the early Christian undeveloped thought,
How long will ye submit
By bale-fires to be lit,
And into heathen bondage to be brought
By men who prophesy extremes,
And all foul errors meet and bear fruit in their dreams?

XII

How long will ye disdain
Man's simple snow-white reign,

143

And over him the smiling face of God,
The Mother of Mankind,
The Lord of muscle and mind,
Swaying the swinging planets with his nod,
And all desires of temporal things—
How long will ye disdain the faith the sweet age brings?

XIII

A swordless faith and clear
As waters when the year
Brings back the balmy colouring of June,
As white as evenings when
The moon upon a fen
Sheds down the lustre of a silvery swoon,
As sweet as voices of young girls
Twining among themselves, some brown, some golden curls.

XIV

A faith as high as Man
Looms sweetly in the van
Of Progress, and I sing it as I may;
Tall as the tallest oak,
Whose each successive stroke
Makes feebler creeds and systems that grow grey;

144

Whose each successive sturdy blow
Lays many a king and prelate, many a tall tree low.

XV

O, faith divine and fair,
Now breathing in the air,
Now heard amid the topmasts of the trees,
For thy sake I would die,
O come, sweet, lift me high,
Even with thine own most odorous viewless breeze,
Above the heads of current things
To where the heavenly Love-bird in her freedom sings!

XVI

Above Life, Time, and Fate,
Towards the heavenly gate
Whereby are clustered all those spirits fair,
From Jesus unto him
Who from our island dim
Caught a rapt sight of azure heavenly air,
And left our island for its sake,
Following that azure sky wherever it might take.

XVII

From Jesus to that bard
Who fled the ice-blasts hard

145

Of England, and in azure Italy
Sang things too sweet to tell,
Till those swift breakers fell
Above his head, and hurled his spirit high—
From Christ to Shelley, poets stand
Like stars beside the gates of heaven's starry land.

XVIII

The faith they preached abides,
Though life's remorseless tides
Do sink the individuals one and all;
The hope they preached remains,
Emerging from time's stains,
And bearing wings, whereas it did but crawl,
And every century adds thereto
Fresh meaning, and a scope magnificently new.

XIX

But not the single face
Of any, though his grace
Be ample, and his kingly head be fair,
Shall tarry as a god,
With autocratic nod,
Swinging a devious sceptre in earth's air,

146

But all shall sink, providing way
For Mankind's rosy sun that ushers in the day.

XX

Yea, Christ shall sink, that new,
Strong Manhood may bedew
The earth with fragments of divinity:
And therefore in my psalm
The Hebrew's divine calm
I celebrate not, but the struggling knee
Of the collective Man who comes,
Flushed with the gleam of sabres and the glare of drums.

XXI

For through the foaming time
Man, single and sublime,
Doth struggle with a scarce-emerging head,
Yea, through the swords and gongs,
And red-lipped battle-songs,
And pale-lipped adjuration of the dead—
He comes, he comes, the infant child,
Cradled on waves tempestuous, hushed by storm-blasts wild!

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XXII

He comes—no shepherds bring
Their bounty, all hearts sing
For joy that he, the Saviour, doth appear,
And some, a few who said
The Man-child was not dead,
When all the cowardly world did quake for fear,
These in the foremost row of saints
Reap joy so wondrous that the joy-struck spirit faints.

XXIII

Return, ye gods of Greece,
Whom Milton said should cease,
Return, and add your radiance to the new
Glory about to be,
For we have need of ye,
We need your gold-haired beauty to bedew
The quivering cradle wherein lies
The very god ye sought with tears and faint surmise.

XXIV

The incarnation true,
Not worshipped hitherto,

148

Of God the motionless and viewless whole;
The manifestation fair
Of God the Lord of air,
And earth, and fire, and all the waves that roll;
The perfect limitless delight
Of nations, absolute in never-ending might.

XXV

Fly, not sweet pagan ghosts,
But all ye wandering hosts
Of fancies that around the cradle flew
Of Christ—miraculous dreams,
Let in the morning's beams,
Let in the pitiless and searching blue,
Let in the piercing morning air,
Too keen for that past saviour, though his crown be fair!

XXVI

And shudder, not ye sprites
Pagan, but those whose rites
Initiated many a bloody day;
Tremble, thou James and Paul,
Your infant-god shall fall,
Already doth his infant cheek turn grey;

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He owned the stable for one night,
But vanishes before the morning's ruddy light.

XXVII

The morning comes! my song
Must cease its current long,
The morning-star is watching at the birth
Of Man, God's complete child;
I cease my singing wild,
For many a voice with far more potent mirth
Waits to attend the Saviour born
With serviceable reed and a much mellower horn.

XXVIII

So ended I—the muse
Said, “Cease not, nor refuse
To celebrate yet further in sweet words
The child whose birth is come
To wake a planet dumb,
And who for victory already girds
Loins mightier than the Christ's who falls,
Liked fabled Lucifer, from heaven's sounding halls.

150

XXIX

“Forget not to record
Who perished by the sword,
And who by tongues of pitiless blood-red flame,
For the dear sake of him
Whose clouded face was dim,
And dim the o'ershadowed purport of his aim,
Till, in these days arising, he
With mighty sceptre wields a world-wide sovereignty.

XXX

“Approach, ye watchers, who
By night, amid the dew,
And hopeless clouds of sorrow and despair,
Watched whether Man might wake,
And braved death for his sake,
And all the swords and weltering fires that were—
Approach; the tomb is empty now,
Man rises as an eagle o'er a mountain-brow.

XXXI

“Man rises: he shall pass
Triumphant through the grass

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And nettles that surround his lowly grave;
Not angels, who at first
Christ's victory rehearsed,
Shall flutter round the newly-opened cave,
But souls divine, well-versed in tears,
Who mark with yearning awe the bright shape that appears.

XXXII

“For, though they worshipped long
With sword and prayer and song,
Yet shall they be astonished in the end,
For Man is greater than
The thought that they began,
And every growing vigorous day shall lend
Fresh vigour to his limbs, and grace
More beautiful shall crown his rapid-ripening face.

XXXIII

“Take, bard, thy pen and sing
Of this sweet coming thing
When all the lingering meadows shall be green,
For long enough the sound
Of winter without bound,
And dismal cymbals built of ice have been;

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As Christ was born in winter's deep
Man shall in gracious summer issue forth from sleep.”

XXXIV

I heard; and I resumed
My singing just entombed
Within the sorry marble of fatigue:
I heard; and took my harp,
Whence notes both sweet and sharp
I bring forth, mixed in a melodious league:
I heard, and gladly do obey,
Hymning again Man's advent and his golden sway.

XXXV

I glance throughout the world,
Where gradually is furled
The flag of Christ, victorious before;
I see new martyrs now,
With firm unshaken brow,
By river and by lake and hill and shore;
Christians, once slain, are slayers, and
Their flag is washed in blood and smeared in many a land.

XXXVI

Their flag was white before,
But now red currents pour

153

Their sanguine horror over its white folds,
For priests, with soul perverse,
Have made Christ as a curse,
And fifty curses their foul temple holds,
Therefore their flag is rent asunder,
And all their faces pale before the coming thunder.

XXXVII

The thunder of new things
Around, and in us, rings,
The heavens are rent, the temple's outer veil
Is torn, the thick clouds break,
On many a hill and lake,
Clear lustrous suns the impurpled past assail;
The deities of Greece return,
Their bright looks reappear from many a tomb and urn.

XXXVIII

Their glad looks reappear,
For in Man's coming year
All truth he recognizes for his own,
Whether in Greece 'twas born,
Or where at early morn
By faint airs the Norwegian pines are blown,

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Or where in China's teeming house
Strange yellow-mantled priests and deities carouse.

XXXIX

All foolish fancies fly
Adown a vaporous sky
That daily groweth clearer and more clear;
Man bends alone to God,
Not now to any rod
Of Hebrew, whether gentle or austere,
Not now to any Christ or Paul,
For all their golden shrines and silver altars fall.

XL

Fall, fast as Milton said
The old gods being dead
And vanquished were departing from the earth—
As in his song they wept,
And cruel ashes crept
Across the hearths where deities had birth,
So bitter ashes creep amain
Over the altar-floor where Christ began his reign.

XLI

The stable is a stall,
And nothing more at all,

155

His Virgin-mother is a woman pale,
And Christ himself appears,
As the holier Man-child nears,
As fiery genius clad in genius-mail—
And all things take their proper form,
No longer viewed through rifts in superstition's storm.

XLII

No trembling shepherds now
Perform an early vow,
But, round the cradle of the Saviour, long
Watchers and guards have been,
With rapture in their mien,
And these, instead of that angelic song
Which filled the heavenly stairs let down,
Bring blossoms of their pain well-suited for his crown.

XLIII

With holy tear-stained bloom
They lingered at his tomb,
While many coarse surrounding soldiers slept,
With sacred tear-stained flowers
They waited, yea, for hours,
Or round his cradle on soft tip-toe crept;

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With joy unstained by tears at last
They greet him in his freedom, sorrow being past.

XLIV

It is not easy now,
Though I with aching brow
And aching hand and fiery pen should strive
To render this sweet tale,
It is not of avail,
No power hath any bard who is alive
In fullness of fair words to speak
The beauty of the rose upon our infant's cheek.

XLV

For Christ was but a man,
But our sweet babe began
Before the single, separate birth of races;
In every woman he
Is manifest, and she
Is but as one of his soft feminine faces;
All beauty of form, and grace superb,
Is his who rides upon wide life without a curb.

XLVI

Our limitless desire
We worship in the fire
Of genius, and the beauty of a girl,

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We see him manifest
In every sacred breast
Of wifehood, and as sacred virgin's curl;
Confined not to a man or race,
We worship him revealed as present in each place.

XLVII

And, seeing that this thing
Approaches with slow wing,
And that it is not manifest as yet,
Save only to the vision
Of souls escaped from prison
Whose longing eyes with love of it are wet,
It is no easy task to say
Words worthy of the ripe, inevitable day.

XLVIII

But Milton's song was based
On fables undisplaced;—
He took his flowers of song from plants that filled
His country, and behind
Gleamed stories to his mind,
Whereby the impetuous struggling soul was stilled;

158

But, when an epoch gleams in front,
Harder indeed it is to bear the tuneful brunt.

XLIX

Therefore we wait for some
Great singer who shall come
To set the dawning epoch to a tune
Sublime as Milton's, when
With power of singers ten
He set to melody the sinking moon
Of Christendom—but now the sun
Demands a novel lyre for brilliance begun.

L

So, dawning era, take
My spirit for thy sake
Faint with the love that finds no words to speak;
Destroy me, but bring nigh
The happy time that I
Seeing, declare with diction hoarse and weak;
I love thee; let some singer give
My love a fitting voice in verses meet to live.